Hello all
As you probably know, this year's Wikimania will again feature hacking days
(which I help to organize), just before Wikimania proper. However, the current
setup is missing an opportunity for developers and chapter people to get
together and talk about what the community wants and needs.
So, I would like to propose to have a Q/A session where the community can ask
questions to developers. I'd like to do this during Wikimania proper, so
everyone has a chance to attend.
The question is: are people interested? Or is it just my silly idea?
I feel that people often have "small" questions that developers could answer
quickly, or there are long standing issues and it's unclear why they don't get
fixed. But often people don't know who to ask, or when or how. At the Wikimedia
Conference in Berlin last year, some people used the opportunity to grab a
techie, which was good, but it was while standing up, over coffee. I'd like to
give this a bit more time, space and especially attention.
So, would you be interested in such a session? Or do you know people who would be?
Please let me know.
Cheers
Daniel
PS: Danese suggested a "fishbowl" type session for this. I think that's a good
idea. Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't know what it is - I didn't :)
The Wikimania handbook.... we've talked about it for years. I finally
took advantage of a quiet, rainy Saturday afternoon to draft a
comprehensive outline and overview:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook
But now it needs content :) Please help fill in details. The handbook
is meant to be a collection of best practices, document practical
information, and also serve as a checklist for future teams. But I
also added a "historical" section at the end of each topic so that we
can also document the various approaches that teams have taken.
So: if you have ever helped run a Wikimania (or even just attended
one!) please help out in building the handbook. Future organizers will
thank you.
best,
Phoebe
--
support Wikimedia: http://donate.wikimedia.org
Dear Wikimaniacs,
We are pleased to announce the opening, on January 1st 0:00 UTC, of the
registration period and the scholarship application period for Wikimania
2011, which will be held in Haifa, Israel, on August 4th to 7th, 2011.
== Registration ==
Those who register early will enjoy considerable discounts in both
registration and accommodation fees, so be sure to register as early as
possible.
* Full information about registration, including fees and registration
periods: http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
* Our registration website: http://wmreg.wikimedia.org.il/
== Scholarship application ==
If you require a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2011, you can apply for one
until the end of January 2011. This year, there will be partial scholarships
to cover travel costs up to USD 300, in addition to full scholarships.
* Full information about scholarships:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
* Our scholarship application website: http://wmschols.wikimedia.org.il/
== Call for Papers ==
The Call for Papers for the conference has been available for a while now.
You are welcome to submit workshop, seminar, tutorial, panel, and
presentation proposals.
* The Call for Papers:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Papers
== Translators required ==
You are welcome to help translate as much of our conference wiki into as
many languages as possible, using the regular {{Other languages}} and
{{Translation}} templates.
If you are interested in translating the registration website into
additional languages, please contact us at
wikimania-registration(a)wikimedia.org.
== Got any questions? ==
You can contact us in any of the ways listed on
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Contact.
If you have questions that might interest others, please post them on
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Information_Desk.
Please excuse us if the registration or scholarship application websites are
temporarily unavailable due to maintenance.
Wishing you all a happy 2011 and looking forward to hosting you in Haifa,
Harel Cain
on behalf of the entire Wikimania 2011 local team
CALL FOR PAPERS - WikiSym 2011 - 7th International Symposium on
Wikis and Open Collaboration
October 3-5, 2011 | Mountain View, California
http://www.wikisym.org/ws2011
The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym) is the
premier conference on open collaboration and related technologies. In 2011,
WikiSym celebrates its 7th year of scholarly, technical and community
innovation in Mountain View, California at the Microsoft Research Campus in
Silicon Valley.
Submissions are invited for the following categories, further details
are available on the conference website:
http://www.wikisym.org/ws2011/submitting:start
* Research Papers, Panels, Workshop: April 1
* Posters, Demos: May 13
* Notification of Acceptance: June 17
The conference program will include a peer-reviewed research track, as well as
workshops, a doctoral consortium, invited keynotes and panel speakers. Evening
social events will follow, because wiki folks know the value of a good party
for sparking conversation and collaboration. As always, Open Space, a
participant-organized track will also run throughout the conference. Many of
the most innovative technology companies in the world have a presence in
Mountain View, which makes it an ideal venue for hatching new ideas and
thoughtful debate about collaborative computing among technologists,
researchers, educators, and activists.
Topics appropriate for research submissions include all aspects of the people,
tools, contexts, and content that comprise open collaboration systems. For
example:
* Collaboration tools and processes
* Social and cultural aspects of collaboration
* Collaboration beyond text: images, video, sound, etc.
* Communities and workgroups
* Knowledge and information production
* New media literacies
* Uses and impact of wikis and open resources in specific fields, such
as
- Education/Open Educational Resources
- Law/Intellectual Property
- Journalism
- Art
- Science
- Publishing
- Business
- Entertainment
In addition to research and development topics, WikiSym also invites
innovative proposals for wiki-style art and performance.
Felipe Ortega, Conference Chair
University Rey Juan Carlos
http://felipeortega.net/
Andrea Forte, Program Chair
Drexel University
http://www.andreaforte.net/
Full support - I really don't want to miss the annual Wikimania and instead think - and also know, due to several requests from DE, AT and CH - that local communities, people that never went to Wikimania and maybe never will, want to have these comunity conferences.
Manuel Schneider
Sent via mobile phone (+49 170 7740589).
----- Reply message -----
Von: "James Forrester" <james(a)jdforrester.org>
An: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Betreff: [Wikimania-l] What to do about 2012, and the future
Datum: Mo., Jan. 24, 2011 21:49
On 19 January 2011 13:04, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I would just like to correct myself and all those people who I misled into
> using the word "biannual". Thanks to Asaf Bartov to pointing out to me that
> the correct form is "biennial". According to most dictionaries, biannual
> does exist but means semi-annual (occurring twice a year). I don't think
> anyone out there thinks we need *biannual* Wikimanias then, just maybe
> biennial :)
To jump in a little late and take this on a different tack, I do.
Specifically, I suggest that the annual global conference,
"Wikimania", is held in July-August each year, and that around
Wikipedia Day (December-January) there is a series of near-continental
(rather than global) large meet-ups[0], perhaps called
"Wikiconference" or something to distinguish them.
This would give "local" teams opportunities to work out how to run
such an event at a (slightly) smaller scale[1], and a trial-run so
they could bid to run Wikimania based on real-world experience that
they know what they are getting in for - and that the jury can use on
which to base its decisions.
These wouldn't necessarily need to be big, all-out affairs, and they
would open up the wiki conference process to more people. It would
allow new editors a more local conference to which they could go with
less effort than flying half-way around the world. They could be
supported by the local chapter, by the Foundation directly, or
(ideally) not at all: our conferences should be from the community,
not the charities that support us, and should be organised as such.
Right now, Wikimania is very cliquey - I'm one of only 10-15 people
who have been to every Wikimania, and a lot of the time us old people
just hang out which each other. Wikimania sadly does not serve the
majority of our editors very well. It's biased towards rich, young
white people without dependants who speak very good English and are
out-going[2]. Local Wikiconferences would help open back up the
social, community side of Wikimedia - one of our very best features.
Just an idea[3]. :-)
J.
[0] - Off the top of my head, I could foresee one each in (say) East
Coast North America, West Coast North America, Latin and South
America, Europe, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Russia and Central
Asia, and Australasia.
[1] - The 150-person West Coast Wiki Conference on 15th January was a
great example of a light-weight but very successful wiki-related
conference that took a huge amount less effort and planning than a
full Wikimania.
[2] - Over time this is becoming less and less reflective of our
community, but it isn't reflected at Wikimania. :-(
[3] - I'm sure other people have had this idea before, as I've
discussed it pretty much every Wikimania since 2006... Not trying to
take the credit here!
--
James D. Forrester
jdforrester(a)wikimedia.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
(moved from wikimania-jury and wikimania-planning lists to here at the
advice of Lodewijk)
Hi all,
My comments below express my personal opinion only, which is not necessarily
representative of the opinion of WM Israel or of the WM Haifa local team.
As someone who attended Wikimania 2007, 2010 and is now spending countless
hours together with other team members on preparing WM 2011, I wanted to
raise a somewhat controversial idea, namely that in future years, Wikimania
will be held once every two years (biannually) and not annually.
The reason I'm saying this is not only the huge effort that has to be
invested by the local team year after year, but what is potentially a lack
of strong bids to host Wikimania 2012, as witnessed by this year's jury.
Even if strong bids emerge for 2012 eventually, I'm sure that in years to
come the problem will repeat and again we might face a situation where there
are no strong bids at all.
To me, the lack of strong bids is an indicator that holding a big, expensive
and complex international conference in a changing location year after year
is not very realistic in the long term - and Wikimania is just becoming ever
more big, expensive and complex (for example, WM2011 will see at least three
side events preceding/co-locating with it).
Few international organizations do that. In fact, many international
conferences such as the International Congress of Mathematicians are held
every 4 years! I don't think it will be a bad sign for the Wikimedia
movement / foundation to decide to hold Wikimania every two years, just a
realistic understanding on its part that the tradition of annual Wikimanias
is not very practical. I hope that eventually, someone will have the
decision power and the courage to take this decision - if not for 2012 (I'm
not advocating to skip WM2012 specifically, that's not my agenda), then in
the future.
Your thoughts?
Yours,
Harel Cain
Wikimania 2011 local team (but speaking personally)
Hi all,
This is just a reminder that the main scholarship application process for
Wikimania 2011 will end on January 31st at 23:59 UTC.
Applications received after that time will be discarded [see note].
If you or any of your friends were planning to apply for a scholarship but
haven't done so yet, I would advise you to do so now, before it's too late.
Even though we already received many hundreds of applications, we will be
sorry to see anyone left out just because he or she missed the application
deadline.
All information about scholarships and how to apply for them is at
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships.
Note:
Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia Switzerland have announced separate
scholarship programs for people in their respective countries.
Applications for those will be made through the same website and will remain
open till February 28th, 2011.
Other chapters might follow suit soon, so stay alert for announcements from
your local chapter.
Regards,
Harel Cain
Wikimania 2011 local team
Hello again
I have now submitted a panel session for the Developer's Q/A:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Ask_the_Developers
If you like, you can sign on that page in support of the session.
-- daniel
On 20.01.2011 13:38, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
> Hello all
>
> As you probably know, this year's Wikimania will again feature hacking days
> (which I help to organize), just before Wikimania proper. However, the current
> setup is missing an opportunity for developers and chapter people to get
> together and talk about what the community wants and needs.
>
> So, I would like to propose to have a Q/A session where the community can ask
> questions to developers. I'd like to do this during Wikimania proper, so
> everyone has a chance to attend.
>
> The question is: are people interested? Or is it just my silly idea?
>
> I feel that people often have "small" questions that developers could answer
> quickly, or there are long standing issues and it's unclear why they don't get
> fixed. But often people don't know who to ask, or when or how. At the Wikimedia
> Conference in Berlin last year, some people used the opportunity to grab a
> techie, which was good, but it was while standing up, over coffee. I'd like to
> give this a bit more time, space and especially attention.
>
> So, would you be interested in such a session? Or do you know people who would be?
>
> Please let me know.
>
>
> Cheers
> Daniel
>
> PS: Danese suggested a "fishbowl" type session for this. I think that's a good
> idea. Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't know what it is - I didn't :)
>
I completely and adamantly disagree with Harel.
Although some bbids are better then others, there are good suggestions already
on the 2012 bid list (the Istanbul bid for example - considering the early
stage) and other groups are considering bidding.
I believe that wikimania should remain an annual event, and although it is
complicated in time investing it is doable annually.
We should consider a mechanism which will provide each winning time with the
experience and knowledge of previous years to make things easier and to enable
annual improvement, but there are many chapters and groups who want to host
wikimania, and I am sure, that as the number of chapters annually increase, and
the number of volunteers annually grow – there will be more and more competitors
wishing to host wikimania.
Deror
________________________________
From: Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
To: Coordination list for Wikimania. <wikimania-planning-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Wikimania jury list <wikimania-jury(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wed, January 19, 2011 1:53:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-jury] [Wikimania-planning-l] What to do about 2012, and
the future
2011/1/19 Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com>
Wikimania-l is a public mailing list with hundreds of members whose relation to
wikimania organizing and bidding can be quite remote. I don't mind moving it
there, but my feeling is that most Wikimania "experts" and stakeholders are on
one of the two lists I wrote to in my first mail.
>
>
>Harel
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
>
>I think that this is not the right list to bring up this discussion. Perhaps you
>could re-send your email to wikimania-l ? For now, although I have strong
>opinions, I will keep them to myself to avoid confusion :)
>
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>Lodewijk
>>
>>
>>2011/1/19 Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com>
>>
>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>I'm not a member of this list (so include me in your replies, should you reply),
>>>and my comments below express my personal opinion only, which is not necessarily
>>>representative of the opinion of WM Israel or of the WM Haifa local team.
>>>
>>>I'm also copying the wikimania-planning-l list in case they're interested.
>>>
>>>As someone who attended Wikimania 2007, 2010 and is now spending countless hours
>>>together with other team members on preparing WM 2011, I wanted to raise a
>>>somewhat controversial idea, namely that in future years, Wikimania will be held
>>>once every two years (biannually) and not annually.
>>>
>>>
>>>The reason I'm saying this is not only the huge effort that has to be invested
>>>by the local team year after year, but what is potentially a lack of strong bids
>>>to host Wikimania 2012, as witnessed by this year's jury. Even if strong bids
>>>emerge for 2012 eventually, I'm sure that in years to come the problem will
>>>repeat and again we might face a situation where there are no strong bids at
>>>all.
>>>
>>>
>>>To me, the lack of strong bids is an indicator that holding a big, expensive and
>>>complex international conference in a changing location year after year is not
>>>very realistic in the long term - and Wikimania is just becoming ever more big,
>>>expensive and complex (for example, WM2011 will see at least three side events
>>>preceding/co-locating with it).
>>>
>>>Few international organizations do that. In fact, many international conferences
>>>such as the International Congress of Mathematicians are held every 4 years! I
>>>don't think it will be a bad sign for the Wikimedia movement / foundation to
>>>decide to hold Wikimania every two years, just a realistic understanding on its
>>>part that the tradition of annual Wikimanias is not very practical. I hope that
>>>eventually, someone will have the decision power and the courage to take this
>>>decision - if not for 2012 (I'm not advocating to skip WM2012 specifically,
>>>that's not my agenda), then in the future.
>>>
>>>
>>>Your thoughts?
>>>
>>>
>>>Yours,
>>>
>>>Harel Cain
>>>Wikimania 2011 local team (but speaking personally)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikimania-planning-l mailing list
>>>Wikimania-planning-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikimania-planning-l mailing list
>>Wikimania-planning-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikimania-planning-l mailing list
>Wikimania-planning-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
>
>
Yes, that is all very true. But whether or not we should have a Wikimania every
year, is something that has impact on all those visitors, so they should have at
least a say in that :) Also, they are your potential bidders for the future
years, and all the experts are there /too/. You have the best of both worlds
there imho.
Lodewijk